• With a fellowship PACT has been supporting artists who respond to social issues through their practices, and who make an impact in these fields through their artistic propositions. Provided with time, space, and a stipend, we place a focus on encouraging exploratory processes, in which pre-existing practices are pursued, but in which new ideas can emerge and new collaborations can be initiated.

    In 2022 and 2023, the PACT Fellowship goes to three transdisciplinary artists, Princela Biyaa, Marny Garcia Mommertz and Fayo Said. Through their individual and collective practices, they explore the possibilities of mutual support and of networking and amplifying marginalised voices.

    In 2020, they founded the Association for Black Art_ists e.V., a growing alliance of Black artists and archivists, who in various constellations are engaged in projects in the Ruhr region, Berlin, The Hague, and in the banlieues of Paris. In connection with this, PACT previously hosted the talk series ›Walgahi: Conversations on Black Archiving‹, in which the Association for Black Art_ists discussed numerous aspects related of Black archiving together with a number of different guests.  

  • Fasia Jansen Residency

    Since October 2020, Princela Biyaa and Marny Garcia Mommertz have been examining the life of singer-songwriter and peace activist Fasia Jansen as part of the open-ended artistic research residency on Jansen. The research duo set out to identify the extent to which Fasia Jansen’s life can be understood and analysed from Black German perspectives. Their fact-finding mission saw stories and works of Black people who knew Fasia Jansen play a central role in gaining a fuller picture of Black people’s networks in Germany during and after the Second World War. Biyaa and Mommertz’ work drew on the conversations and accounts of Fasia Jansen’s niece, Ms Vivian Seton, and also on interviews conducted by Tina Campt in 1992. In the process, it became clear that extending the perspective away from Fasia Jansen’s individual identity and towards embedding her story in socio-political contexts allows correlations to appear that can provide a deeper insight into the collective experiences of Black people during Fasia Jansen’s lifetime.

    In the context of this residency, the exploration of Fasia Jansen’s life can be viewed as the first step in a process in which Biyaa and Mommertz ask and discuss questions about the archiving of Black histories. They seek active dialogue with people who pursue different forms of archiving, such as Fayo Said, founder of Oromia Records, an online archive on Oromo cultures. The live Q&A will start 20.06.2021 at 1.30 pm on vimeo. After the presentation the research duo invites you to a discussion in our digital festival lounge.

    The artistic research residency on Fasia Jansen 2020 is supported and promoted by IFFF Dortmund+Köln and Interkultur Ruhr.


  • Running all year round since 2002, the residency programme is at the heart of PACT Zollverein’s dayresidency programme to day work. Open to professional artists from home and abroad who work in the areas of dance, performance, media arts or music and closely linked to PACT’s two other core strands of activity in presenting work and facilitating research and development, the programme is a key element in PACT Zollverein’s profile as an Artists’ House supporting lively exchange between practice and theory.

  • Artists have and continue to be affected, often existentially, by the corona crisis while, at the same time, their ability to interpret complex social contexts in open, critical and interdisciplinary forms grows in importance. In response to the challenges and constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic, PACT has created 20 new Guest Fellowships alongside its established long-term Fellowship Programme. These fellowship awards are not project specific or commission based, but rather aimed principally at enabling the recipient artists to continue with their current work and research and to build new networks.
    The 16 artists taking part were proposed by an interdisciplinary advisory board. Our thanks go to Fanti Baum & Olivia Ebert, Johanna-Yassira Kluhs, Christine Peters and Leonie Radine.